Nopesport

Varsity Match 2006

In an eventful 2006 Varsity Match at Leith Hill, at first the whole race was in doubt as Cambridge found themselves stranded on the M11 for six hours and missed the original start times, then the delayed start times and eventually the whole event. Oxford kindly chose not to claim the trophy and instead agreed to a 24 hour delay with the race now controversially held the morning after the event social!

When the race did eventually take place on the Sunday, with Saturday's glorious weather giving way to first overnight snow and then bitingly cold wind and drizzle, both men's and women's races were in doubt until the final moments.

In the men's race (four runners to count), there was little to choose between the early times of the Oxford and Cambridge runners, leaving the outcome uncertain with only the last three runners remaining. Leading on split times through the spectator control at halfway was Alan Elder of Cambridge, with both Chris Millard and Joe Mercer of Oxford some five minutes down. Alan held his form round the second half of the race to catch and pass Chris and finish with an excellent time of 62:01, good enough for him to take the individual trophy for the first time.

This left Oxford needing both runners to finish in the next three minutes to take the trophy, and although Joe and Chris came in to take second and third respectively in the individual race, they could not quite manage the times needed, leaving Cambridge to take the trophy for the first time since 2002 by the slender margin of just 9 minutes.

It was also 2002 since Cambridge had won the women's race. And the men's race may have been close, but Cambridge's struggle to regain the women's trophy as well was to prove the closest women's race in the history of the Varsity Match. Cambridge posted fast early times through Elspeth Ingleby and Anya Crocker. Then Oxford responded with a very fast time from Helen Gardner, posting 50:07 (which was to prove the winning time), and passing Nicola Robertson for Cambridge, who herself went into second place overall.

The women's race is three runners to score, and with the Cambridge team in, all was down to Ekaterina Orekhova and Cerys Manning for Oxford. First came Ekaterina, having led on split times a third of the way round the course but having run into difficulties in one of the technical sections later on. Her time meant that it was still possible for Oxford to win. But Oxford knew that this was Cerys's first event after months of serious viral illness, and that she was under strict doctor's instructions to run for only 20 minutes and so would have been jogging or walking for much of the course. And so the time ticked by as the Cambridge team (one of them in particular) fretted and fidgeted, but it was just too much to ask - Cerys did a much faster time than anyone could have expected and took fourth place, but it was not to be for Oxford, and Cambridge ran out winners by a margin of less than 4 minutes.

Full results are at http://www.jok.org.uk/varsity_match/2006/results and a full report including routes of the leading runners is promised for the next issue of Compass Sport.

Report thanks to JonX.